Chang’e 1 (嫦娥一号, pronounced roughly chang-uh) was an unmanned Chinese lunar-orbiting spacecraft, part of the first phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. The primary technical objectives of the mission were to develop and launch China's first lunar orbiter, validate the technology necessary to fly lunar missions, build a basic engineering system for lunar exploration, start scientific exploration of the Moon, and gain experience for subsequent missions.Read Full Article →

SELENE (SELenological and ENgineering Explorer), better known in Japan by its nickname Kaguya (かぐや) after the legendary Japanese moon princess, was the second Japanese lunar orbiter spacecraft. The main scientific objectives of the mission were to: study the origins of the Moon and its geologic evolution, obtain information about the lunar surface environment, and perform radio science, especially precise measurement of the moon's gravity field.Read Full Article →

Lunar Orbiter was designed to photograph the lunar surface for the Apollo program. It's cameras were to provide the first clear images of the far side of the Moon. Interest in the Lunar Orbiter program has recently revived with the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP), an effort to digitize and restore data tapes from the five 1966 and 1967 Lunar Orbiter spacecraft that were sent to the Moon.Read Full Article →